How went that story about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector again?
abigail_n has written excellent meta on The Good Wife which everyone who watched and also who didn't watch the first season of what is probably the new show whose return I look forward to most should read.
Meanwhile, it's any day of the week, so there is controversy in Whodom. Many posts have been written; my favourite take on the subject is this one: On disliking female characters, displays of compassion, standards and feminism. You know why it's my favourite? Because in addition to making sense and being well argued, it doesn't combine a defense of Amy and/or s5 with a put-down of previous companions and/or previous eras. See, this is what's been getting to me during the entire last week; many a time I read a post listing on why the poster loves and appreciates Amy/the new season/other characters in the new season, and been nodding along, and then comes something like "...and this is so much better than the RTD-written women who were slaves to men's sexual desires" and I stop nodding, yell "say what?!!!" and feel as put off as after reading a post about how Amy is a bad role model for today's youth on account of miniskirts and commitment issues.
What's been increasingly irritating me on both sides is something not new but old: the conviction that everyone not agreeing with the poster's own pov must be display an -ism, be irrational and spiteful. While being completely oblivious to similar attitudes, past and present, in oneself. Now, maybe I'm too cynical, but I think if you exchanged, say, the recent Silurian two-parter with the Cybermen two parter of New Who's season 2, with nothing changed in the script but the substitution of Amy for Rose, Mickey for Rory, and Eleven for Ten, then the following would happen: people who already dislike Amy would cite her ignoring of Rory in order to giggle with the Doctor and insistence on looking up her Alt!parents as reasons to further that claim, while people who like Amy would point out she didn't intentionally ignore Rory in the giggle scene and showcases that he's not nothing to her in the scene where she talks with the Doctor about his childhood and grandmother, and that looking up her Alt!parents is what a curious, strong-willed young women with issues in her past would do. Meanwhile, people who already dislike Rose would say "oh, isn't such a beastly remark like "you're so clingy" typical for that cow Rose, poor Mickey" and "she's so self-absorbed that she hardly pays attention to the negotiations with the Silurians" while people liking Rose already would praise her ingeniuity in stealing the device and curiosity that allows her to discover the hibernating soldiers and their weapons. And of course at some point the Rose dislikers would point to how much better Amy does in the Cybermen two parter, and the Amy dislikers would praise Rose's actions with the Silurians. Which isn't to say that Amy and Rose are interchangeable - they aren't, they're different characters - but that I think a good deal of the response is projecting attitudes already there in the viewer towards the characters in question.
Moreover, the increasing black-and-whiteness and sheer assumption that if you have attittude x and fannish affection y, you must therefore also share affiliation z also irritate me. Take the idea that love of Martha automatically means love of Amy, or that any critique of s5 must reveal the demented Doctor/Rose'shipper and/or RTD fan within. This is ridiculous. One of the harshest reviews of Time of the Angels (which for the record I thought was a great episode) I've seen in lj dom came from x_los, who deeply dislikes Ten, much of RTD's writing and hasn't yet voiced a pro-Rose opinion I've heard. And you know, there is such a thing as an opinion between the extremes. Personally, I'm enjoying watching season 5, but I don't think it's the best New Who season so far ( or the best since s1, for that matter, not that I rate s1 as highly as most fans do); like every season of this show, it has its flaws and virtues. (Some of the flaws, such as the crack being alternatively the most dangerous thing ever or forgettable for the next eps, might be explained in the season finale, so I'm withholding judgment there.) As for Amy, after a very strong debut it took me a while to get a grip on her, and I do think that has to do with the uneven writing for her, but now I like her. I don't love her yet. Maybe I never will; maybe I will later. You know what? This is okay. Sure, there have been characters I fell for pretty much in their first outing; in terms of New Who companions, these were Donna and Martha, but not Rose or Jack, both of whom I liked but didn't love; my feelings towards them later varied depending on the seasons. But there have been even more characters whom I felt only a mild sympathy for, or indifference, in more extreme cases even hostility, and who won me around as time went on. Again, staying within the Whoverse, Gwen Cooper is my best example for a character I felt only indifference for during TW's first season, came to like, then love, during the second season, and post Children of Earth now love, to use that popular fannish phrase, like burning. Instant passionate character love is a beautiful thing, but it's not the only option available; not feeling it doesn't mean you have to automatically option for character hate instead, and there is something to be said for being won around; in addition to increasing my appreciation for a character, it usually also increases my appreciation for the show as a whole.
Moving outside the Whoverse for a bit to quote a case in point: I remember how, when the Babylon 5 dvds came out and I embarked on a rewatch, I found the Minbari in general and Delenn in particular far more interesting and complex than I had during my original watch when the show had been broadcast in the 90s; same with Michael Garibaldi. Back then, the bulk of my fannish attention was taken by the Centauri and the Narn in general and Londo, G'Kar and Vir in particular; the remaining focus went to Al Bester. The humans and the Minbari were just sort of there as far as I was concerned. By the time the dvds came out, I had read some interesting meta re: the Minbari by deborah_judge and others, so I paid attention, and while my basic priorities didn't change, I found some new interests as well, and that in turn only added to my B5 love. I think fandom by insisting you either have to completely embrace a character and/or a show/season/showrunner or wholesale reject all of the above is robbing itself of these kind of possibilities and discoveries.
I get the frustation when one comes fresh from a fannish high - watching an episode where beloved characters have scenes that make you go "yay!" - on the internet and finds a "meh" or "I hated that" in other quarters, and I get the frustration of the reverse - there are people who used to share interests with you who praise and squee about something you can't like as much. I've experienced both. (The most recent case was within a week, when I saw Across the Sea in Lost which was a hugely unpopular episode that I loved to bits, and Vampires of Venice in Doctor Who which I disliked but which the majority of fandom, at least on my flist, loved. And my, but I remember ye olde Jossverse days, when I was in awe of season 4 of Angel and loved Connor, and then there was Connor hate and season 4 hate on the internet galore.) Channelling this frustration in posts explaining what one loves about a character/a season/a writer is a great way to deal with it. But I'd rather it would be done without the simultanous slagging off of other characters/seasons/writers, because while I can't speak for anyone but myself, that has anything but the intended result (instead of going "yes! you're right, X is nifty!" it rather makes me go "I love Y, and if you can't praise X without explaining to me how you hate Y and how everything Y is below contempt, you've lost this reader", whether Y is a character or a season or a series or a writer), and makes the poster look hypocritical to boot.
In conclusion: I think I'll rewatch Gridlock (love Martha and her submarine movie applying smarts, love Brannigan and Novice Hame, love the Cassinis, love Ten car-jumping and the conversation between him and Martha at the very end of the episode), The Unicorn and the Wasp (for sheer Ten 'n Donna-ness, because they are my favourite New Who team, which does not mean I can't love anyone else, for the Agatha Christie parody in terms of plot and for Agatha Christie herself as a character being nifty and very three dimensional and real), The Eleventh Hour (for verily, one can't watch Amy trapping the Doctor with his tie until she has some answers too often) and Amy's Choice (pushing all my dreamscape-as-acharacter-revelations-buttons). And I'll be profoundly glad this show allows me to appreciate them all, the characters, the writers, and the stories, in their differences and similarities.
Meanwhile, it's any day of the week, so there is controversy in Whodom. Many posts have been written; my favourite take on the subject is this one: On disliking female characters, displays of compassion, standards and feminism. You know why it's my favourite? Because in addition to making sense and being well argued, it doesn't combine a defense of Amy and/or s5 with a put-down of previous companions and/or previous eras. See, this is what's been getting to me during the entire last week; many a time I read a post listing on why the poster loves and appreciates Amy/the new season/other characters in the new season, and been nodding along, and then comes something like "...and this is so much better than the RTD-written women who were slaves to men's sexual desires" and I stop nodding, yell "say what?!!!" and feel as put off as after reading a post about how Amy is a bad role model for today's youth on account of miniskirts and commitment issues.
What's been increasingly irritating me on both sides is something not new but old: the conviction that everyone not agreeing with the poster's own pov must be display an -ism, be irrational and spiteful. While being completely oblivious to similar attitudes, past and present, in oneself. Now, maybe I'm too cynical, but I think if you exchanged, say, the recent Silurian two-parter with the Cybermen two parter of New Who's season 2, with nothing changed in the script but the substitution of Amy for Rose, Mickey for Rory, and Eleven for Ten, then the following would happen: people who already dislike Amy would cite her ignoring of Rory in order to giggle with the Doctor and insistence on looking up her Alt!parents as reasons to further that claim, while people who like Amy would point out she didn't intentionally ignore Rory in the giggle scene and showcases that he's not nothing to her in the scene where she talks with the Doctor about his childhood and grandmother, and that looking up her Alt!parents is what a curious, strong-willed young women with issues in her past would do. Meanwhile, people who already dislike Rose would say "oh, isn't such a beastly remark like "you're so clingy" typical for that cow Rose, poor Mickey" and "she's so self-absorbed that she hardly pays attention to the negotiations with the Silurians" while people liking Rose already would praise her ingeniuity in stealing the device and curiosity that allows her to discover the hibernating soldiers and their weapons. And of course at some point the Rose dislikers would point to how much better Amy does in the Cybermen two parter, and the Amy dislikers would praise Rose's actions with the Silurians. Which isn't to say that Amy and Rose are interchangeable - they aren't, they're different characters - but that I think a good deal of the response is projecting attitudes already there in the viewer towards the characters in question.
Moreover, the increasing black-and-whiteness and sheer assumption that if you have attittude x and fannish affection y, you must therefore also share affiliation z also irritate me. Take the idea that love of Martha automatically means love of Amy, or that any critique of s5 must reveal the demented Doctor/Rose'shipper and/or RTD fan within. This is ridiculous. One of the harshest reviews of Time of the Angels (which for the record I thought was a great episode) I've seen in lj dom came from x_los, who deeply dislikes Ten, much of RTD's writing and hasn't yet voiced a pro-Rose opinion I've heard. And you know, there is such a thing as an opinion between the extremes. Personally, I'm enjoying watching season 5, but I don't think it's the best New Who season so far ( or the best since s1, for that matter, not that I rate s1 as highly as most fans do); like every season of this show, it has its flaws and virtues. (Some of the flaws, such as the crack being alternatively the most dangerous thing ever or forgettable for the next eps, might be explained in the season finale, so I'm withholding judgment there.) As for Amy, after a very strong debut it took me a while to get a grip on her, and I do think that has to do with the uneven writing for her, but now I like her. I don't love her yet. Maybe I never will; maybe I will later. You know what? This is okay. Sure, there have been characters I fell for pretty much in their first outing; in terms of New Who companions, these were Donna and Martha, but not Rose or Jack, both of whom I liked but didn't love; my feelings towards them later varied depending on the seasons. But there have been even more characters whom I felt only a mild sympathy for, or indifference, in more extreme cases even hostility, and who won me around as time went on. Again, staying within the Whoverse, Gwen Cooper is my best example for a character I felt only indifference for during TW's first season, came to like, then love, during the second season, and post Children of Earth now love, to use that popular fannish phrase, like burning. Instant passionate character love is a beautiful thing, but it's not the only option available; not feeling it doesn't mean you have to automatically option for character hate instead, and there is something to be said for being won around; in addition to increasing my appreciation for a character, it usually also increases my appreciation for the show as a whole.
Moving outside the Whoverse for a bit to quote a case in point: I remember how, when the Babylon 5 dvds came out and I embarked on a rewatch, I found the Minbari in general and Delenn in particular far more interesting and complex than I had during my original watch when the show had been broadcast in the 90s; same with Michael Garibaldi. Back then, the bulk of my fannish attention was taken by the Centauri and the Narn in general and Londo, G'Kar and Vir in particular; the remaining focus went to Al Bester. The humans and the Minbari were just sort of there as far as I was concerned. By the time the dvds came out, I had read some interesting meta re: the Minbari by deborah_judge and others, so I paid attention, and while my basic priorities didn't change, I found some new interests as well, and that in turn only added to my B5 love. I think fandom by insisting you either have to completely embrace a character and/or a show/season/showrunner or wholesale reject all of the above is robbing itself of these kind of possibilities and discoveries.
I get the frustation when one comes fresh from a fannish high - watching an episode where beloved characters have scenes that make you go "yay!" - on the internet and finds a "meh" or "I hated that" in other quarters, and I get the frustration of the reverse - there are people who used to share interests with you who praise and squee about something you can't like as much. I've experienced both. (The most recent case was within a week, when I saw Across the Sea in Lost which was a hugely unpopular episode that I loved to bits, and Vampires of Venice in Doctor Who which I disliked but which the majority of fandom, at least on my flist, loved. And my, but I remember ye olde Jossverse days, when I was in awe of season 4 of Angel and loved Connor, and then there was Connor hate and season 4 hate on the internet galore.) Channelling this frustration in posts explaining what one loves about a character/a season/a writer is a great way to deal with it. But I'd rather it would be done without the simultanous slagging off of other characters/seasons/writers, because while I can't speak for anyone but myself, that has anything but the intended result (instead of going "yes! you're right, X is nifty!" it rather makes me go "I love Y, and if you can't praise X without explaining to me how you hate Y and how everything Y is below contempt, you've lost this reader", whether Y is a character or a season or a series or a writer), and makes the poster look hypocritical to boot.
In conclusion: I think I'll rewatch Gridlock (love Martha and her submarine movie applying smarts, love Brannigan and Novice Hame, love the Cassinis, love Ten car-jumping and the conversation between him and Martha at the very end of the episode), The Unicorn and the Wasp (for sheer Ten 'n Donna-ness, because they are my favourite New Who team, which does not mean I can't love anyone else, for the Agatha Christie parody in terms of plot and for Agatha Christie herself as a character being nifty and very three dimensional and real), The Eleventh Hour (for verily, one can't watch Amy trapping the Doctor with his tie until she has some answers too often) and Amy's Choice (pushing all my dreamscape-as-acharacter-revelations-buttons). And I'll be profoundly glad this show allows me to appreciate them all, the characters, the writers, and the stories, in their differences and similarities.